Why was the best fighter ace in WW1 and WW2 not american?

Question

This does somewhat puzzle me. The best aces in Korea and Vietnam were americans.

Answer 1

Oh, well this is what my thesis was about! In short:

As mentioned above, in World War I U. S. pilots didn't have as many flying hours and combat experience as Europeans because they joined only in the end of it. Also, U. S. planes were terribly poor then. In the beginning the standard U. S. fighters were called flying coffins, because of the construction. The engines were poor too. Finally, airplanes weren't considered effective by the conservative military leadership. This is partly right, because at that techical level planes weren't too useful and who are we to judge the generals who faied to realise the potential? The U. S. A. spent ridiculously little on aviation, and their Mexican mission against Pancho Villa was also an unfortunate event for aviators.

Between the world wars military aviation was neglected again, although there were some successes, such as Lindbergh's flight. The isolationist and pacifist politics and the country's geographical situation didn't favour fighter planes. Why should they build such when there are two big oceans separating the country from the enemies? U. S. long range bombers, however, were the best. Also, there were many little political scandals and accidents that were obstacles in the way of development.

In World War II Roosevelt was finally convinced to support aviation. Finally, don't forget that Europeans favoiured short range fighter planes because of the short distances. Not to mention the genious architects, like Fokker. Perhaps even if the U. S. A. had supported aviation, the Messerschmits and Spitfires would have still beaten American planes.

Answer 2

In both World Wars bad fighter pilots died. A good fighter pilot would last a long time.

While there were some good American pilots in WWI none of them were there much more than a year before the war ended. The pilots with the big scores (over 50 kills) essentially were fighting for four or more years. No American pilot was going to have enough time to get 50 kills whether he was that good or not, not to mention getting close to Richthofen's 80.

In WWII the type of conflict changed the opportunity for pilots to amass the kill numbers that there were in WWI. The fronts were much more fluid and the campaigns were shorter. Generally speaking an opponents ability to keep building aircraft diminished quickly depriving the successful pilot the opportunity to shoot down a lot of them, the other guy wasn't building them fast enough. So, other than some German and Russian pilots in WWII the opportunity did not exist for an ace to acquire 80 kills.

Answer 3

USA wasn't in either WWI or WWII for the whole war, so Americans didn't have as much time to develop skills and make kills. Particularly in WWII European theatre the fighter air war was pretty much over by the time USA joined. The Pacific island-hopping/carrier war didn't really result in a lot of prolonged air battles either. Consider Midway which was basically over in a few hours, with only one or two flights by any one pilot.

Answer 4

Length of time in the war.

We were not in WWI or WW2 that long and our pilots rotated out after 25 missions typically. Whereas the British, German, Japanese, Russian pilots had no place to go back to that was not at war.

Korea and Vietnam we really were in the air war the entire time.

Answer 5

That is easy to answer. Americans were not the best pilots during the world wars because we Germans were in it too. Did you notice that best pilots tend to coem from Germany followed by Britain and France.
So if neither of these nations had any pilots in other wars, they couldn't be the best and therefore Americans could pretend to be good.

Oh, forget about this "we joind the war late so we couldn't fight as long as the others". There were German, English and French Pilots with more planes shot down than any American. And some of these Europeans were only in the war for a year or two. Americans were just not as good as ther rest of the western world.

Answer 6

World war one definitely Baron Von Richtoffen. World war two you would have to consider "Bluey Truscott from australia and Douglas Bader from england.He later received a Knighthood for flying,getting shot down,and escaping three{?}times from prison camps before being incarcerated in Colditz.Oh by the way did i mention that he had only "tin" legs.He lost both legs in a crash just at the start of the war.

Answer 7

uh...sorry to burst your bubble, but other people from other countries are good at things too.

Consider that in Korea/Vietnam there probally wasn't as much competition to be "the ace" between people flying fighters from different countries. How many air forces were in Korea/Vietnam with the US?

Answer 8

That's easy, the Germans had a fly till you die policy, especiall WWII. The allies, in particular the US rotated their pilots out after so many missions....

Answer 9

WWI best ace even i know that is the red baron cause i watched it on foxtel in the history channel

Answer 10

in ww1 the us military was not particulary interested in planes and the europeans were the ones who were doing the dog fights. im not sure about ww2 there were lots of dogfights in the pacific between japan and the u.s